Hello, all. I consider myself a medium-level solver, and this was definitely one of the most exciting tests I've seen here. It's the first test that I've solved all puzzles while the test was running. The fact that time solving time was not a major factor in the test (both in terms of the time alotted to take the test, and the factor that time had in assigning a score) helped to relieve a lot of pressure from solving, making for a more enjoyable experience for me. As solvers talk about different scoring systems, I hope that the appeal of a test like this to the not-top solvers is retained.

I'd like to see that we limit the number of solvers getting no bonus, because when that happens, ties accumulate around the multiples of the base-point per puzzle, and which puts more focus on the time solved.

That was one of the things that came to mind when I read motris's system. It seems there's four things a ranking system for a test like this has to deal with
1. Getting a proper ordering at the top.
2. Giving out enough bonus in the middle to avoid huge ties.
3. Being able to set a hard cutoff for no bonus (60 minutes here) so solvers that want to be competitive don't have to set aside an indeterminate amount of time to do each puzzle.
4. Being able to throw out a contestant's worst performance in a sensible way. (This basically requires that the top time be given the same amount of bonus for all puzzles.)

I'm inclined to agree with motris that the rank-based system is the best way to do 1 and 4. I've played around with several modifications to his system to try to do 2 and 3 better, but only two ideas don't have anything egregiously wrong with them:

A. Have a double-layered system where the top 25 or so use the system motris has (50-25 bonus points) and everyone else between 25th and the 60 minutes has points assigned by linear interpolation (25-0 bonus points). The interpolation could be done either by rank or by time. Some weaknesses are that it seems needlessly complex and that if there aren't many more than 25 people who solved in under 60 minutes the gradient for the 25-0 range could be inappropriately steep.

B. If a puzzle has N people finish in under 60 minutes, award 201-[rank] points for solvers finishing faster than 60 (so 200 for 1st) and 201-N points for everyone else. Have some floor (50?), a point total which anyone who solves the puzzle is guaranteed, in case close to 200 people finish in an hour. Numbers can be tweaked obviously. One "weakness" of this system is that it gives a different amount of points for finishing each puzzle assuming you cross the 60 minutes mark. But that might be a feature as opposed to a bug, since it will make the hardest puzzles worth much more to finish.

This is a terrific framework to view the scoring concerns. I chose 50 because it would "work" for 9 of the 10 puzzles, but I could have chosen 100 if I wanted 7 of the 10 puzzles to work, dropping kakuro and pentomino as being too hard too. But I agree a stable system that only rewards bonus to those under an hour is good and I think of your options, (A) is closest to what I might imagine being a good leveraged system. Let's say this:

"For all solvers that finish in under 60 minutes, they will earn a bonus based on their final rank. The first 25 solvers will earn a bonus of 25 points for 1st, down to 1 point for 25th. Also, with M solvers under one hour on a puzzle, the Nth solver will earn (M+1-N)/M * 25 additional points."

That certainly does (3). And while this might seem complex with two different parts, they independently serve to do (1) and (2) fairly. You cannot do just the former and capture (2). But you also cannot do just the latter and fairly do (1), as on a puzzle where many people qualify versus a puzzle where few people qualify, the top tier being 125, 124.8, 124.6 is much different than 125, 124, 123. The half-half system ends up being a good compromise. Taking the best score on 9 of 10 does the last part and your parameters are met.

I've remodeled the scoring with this new melon-like (A) as I specifically restated it. I was curious to see which if any puzzles really broke the scoring. Samurai sort of does as it only has 20 solvers in one-hour bonus zone, but the formula still is basically ok. Also, now only two solvers (158 and 159) tie at 900, and there is a lot more grading of intermediate scores. Give it a look if you are really interested.

rank2.xlsx (hosted on my webspace because of a 100kb rule here.)

Edited by motris 2012-02-05 7:55 AM

Fully agree with Melon's list, especially point 3


While we are trying to design a robust system that determines the relative scores / ranks at the top accurately and fairly, it is equally important to keep most other players in mind. In my view, the 60 minutes cut off for each puzzle in this test has been a key parameter for the success of this test. I would always vote for something that a player knows as his target, rather than bonus for top-50 or bonus based on n*top player's time which players don't know when they start solving.

motris' rank2.xlsx captures all the points logically and can be used in future marathons. It might sound complicated when someone reads first time, but for those who are not interested in details, it simply means "you get bonus if you solve within 60 minutes".
Yes, Samurai sort of breaks the scoring. But it is part of organizers' responsibility to have puzzles based on the scoring system in place.

I guess this system solves many scoring ambiguities. I think the only scenario that is not captured is a TVC V like scenario, where one player is far superior than the rest. Isn't it possible to implement a system that is similar to the LMI Ranking score. There part of the rating is based on ranking and part on actual score, with the top score being 1000. So a system based part on ranking and part of actual time, where the fastest time is a set bonus and 60 minutes is 0 bonus and the rest is scaled.

I think the most annoying part of these grading systems is that you have no clue how you stand opposed to others when you're done solving and your relative rank will shift constantly. You can be ahead of someone when you're done solving and behind them when the test ends. This will especially affect people in the middle I think. I assume there's people in the middle who will try competing against eachother a bit too and they will have no clue if they beat their friend in this test or not till days after they are done. At least I always like to see how I have done against players who are close to me on the LMI rank when i'm done solving.


Edited by Para 2012-02-05 5:17 PM

I dont think this system is too fair if somebody win a round with 6 minutes apart ;)

I propose that first position is 50 points bonus, and this is the base of the calculation of bonus points/minute.

For instance if the first's solving time 10 minutes then every minute is 1 point.
If the solving time 15 minutes then 50/45=1,11

So if the puzzle is too easy the bonus will be lower than 1, but in generally it will be higher than 1, in extreme cases it can be almost 2.


Every player still know that if he solves the puzzle within one hour, he gets bonus (and the bonus will be 1-1.5 in most cases).

Regarding the Different Neighbours puzzle, it's also doable if you miss the uniqueness (I did). I've recorded a possible start . The notes are kind of hard to make out, but you should be able to follow the solve.

In all my struggles with the Different Neighbors puzzle(I took a certain part as correct which was wrong and kept thinking the mistake is elsewhere), I found about 3-4 openings of different complexities. The easiest one is what Deb mentioned but there are other tricks there. I guess if one wants to stare at it and start over about 5 times like I ended up doing, they'll find all of them :\

Yes, and I think you've given a great idea for how this system would look, with half of bonus scaling by time and half being flat based on rank. That seems perfectly appropriate for an LMI test comparing 10 puzzles just as it works over the year for comparing 10 LMI tests with each other.

Of course, all systems have problems. The scoring of the Marathon test is a huge outlier compared to the normal monthly tests with time bonus, so it is not a good test for the overall rankings as it raises almost everyone more than usual. In this test, the scoring of three of the puzzles led to much less bonus than the other seven. So we are proposing possibilities to address these issues. I don't think there is any dominant answer here, but there are better and worse approaches and it is good to hear from many solvers and aim for better next time.



Well, this is sort of a problem on all tests (as your rank will only ever fall) but with variable scoring there could indeed be small rank changes when solvers are at values where they are "effectively tied". I don't think anyone can cleanly claim victory when things are this close (like when I beat Ulrich by 1 second!) but the rank score will eventually favor one over the other. My sense though is that these effects will be rather small, as they were during Puzzle Jackpot when final scoring wasn't known until all solvers had completed. I could do subsampling analysis to be sure, but I think using rank and not time you will have greater stability. And until results are finalized, you can always just use relative performance for "bragging rights".

"I beat you on 6 of 10 puzzles!"
"Yes, but I beat you by 5 minutes overall!"

Like many things in sports, there aren't always winners but there is always debate.

Wow. Thanks for that video... I now have a better understanding of how to make limiting assumptions on possibilities. Seeing the thought process unfold just made it click :)

Really this is looking interesting. I have never seen such kind of game. I would like to participate in this amazing and different game. I like such kind of things really. And i think this would be knowledgeable. So any one can tell me how i can be the part of this game.